 HH Faridkot, Brig Gurkirpal Singh,
Col MS Brar and Lt Col EW Carvalho
The enemy opened up with his guns and heavy mortars within 25 minutes. His DFs were obviously well selected to put it mildly; the fire was intense and violent. The amount of fire received and captured documents revealed that he used three field regiments, one medium regiments, one medium battery and one light regiment (120mm Tempella Mortars). He did not use his super heavy battery from concrete gun emplacements at SIALKOT, but we were to get a taste of that later.
To cut a long story short I might say that we were all well plastered - the assaulting companies, the reserve companies, the Battalion Headquarters, the RAP and my party, which was accompanied by the BC party.
The CO's party came under 13 DFs - Major MUDHOLKAR my 2IC, our signallers, batmen and I have now become confirmed fatalists. The nearest landed five feet from our heads but by that time we had become accustomed to the stuff and found the dust and smoke rather annoying and distracting.
Some very gallant deeds were performed that night. When the reserves began to grown restive and scatter under the very accurate and intense fire, the Adjutant, Capt BELLIAPPA and Sub Major MOHAN SINGH, came up from Battalion Headquarters to rally and steady them, all the while under very heavy fire. Young BELLIAPPA moved up with them. Sub Major MOHAN SINGH though wounded in the shoulder, carried and organised evacuation of casualties and was always a tower of strength to every one.
In the meantime the attack, continued. The enemy was now also using small arms. He had four MMG's across his front. 'A' Company came in for a tremendous amount of fire and were temporarily bogged down. My gunner was superb and despite the fact that wireless communication with A Company was now very infrequent and for long spells non-existent, we were able to observe the tracer being fired by the MMGs and bring fire down on them. Notwithstanding the fact that we were told we would have a `walk-over' in our phase of the attack, we had spent some time on selection and survey of targets and these fortunately proved to be 100% accurate. C Company made good progress with young RAJINDER SINGH as its commander and that old veteran Sub MUKHTIAR SINGH as the 2IC. While closing with the enemy they suddenly came under fire from a copse on their left flank.
No 4436377 Sep MALKIAT SINGH who was doing stretcher bearer to the company, threw away his stretcher, ran into the copse and single handed killed the enemy gunner, bringing back an LMG (BAR). They got to their objective and it was very heartening to see three red verey lights go up in all that confusion. This posed the enemy with a problem because C Company was now a good 500 yards behind his ground of tactical importance, which was a commanding hill feature to our right and was meant to be taken in the second phase of the Brigade attack. Sub MUKHTIAR SINGH was quick to exploit the success they had gained. He dashed off with a party of four to the hill from where they were now being fired at, killed some enemy and returned with four prisoners and two LMG (BAR's). The rest of the enemy took to their heels and the Battalion attacking in the second phase had only to walk on to the feature without the need of the pre-arranged fire plan. They had an unscheduled Phase III the next morning though, as some of the enemy had hid in an adjoining village. C Company then firmed in where they were.
The moon was still up and anything that moved seemed to draw fire. My signaler, who had the 31 wireless set strapped to his back, occasionally moved to settle himself the better. Every time he did this, the moon caught the surface of the set and caused it to glint. I don't quite know what the enemy thought the glint was, but for good measure he started firing at us with an RCL gun. We had three shots, all of them in the same spot 20 yards in front of us. I imagine some one from A Company shot the gunner because his activities came to a full - stop shortly thereafter.
A Company was still at it - they were being kept off by an MMG well to the left and not within the scope of our attack. The original fire plan had long since finished but we had recorded this area as a target and a possible source of nuisance and Major CHOPRA, my gunner, obligingly brought down a scale 5 crump from the whole of 13 Field Regiment and that settled the flank MMG once and for all. The moment that gun was written off the enemy opened up with another from within his defended locality. By now the Company Commander and the FOO were not to be found. They were separated from the company and presumed killed or wounded. It speaks very highly of the remaining Platoon commanders and the Company 2IC, Sub HANSA SINGH, that they kept together and prepared for a final assault. 2/Lt VP SINGH No 2 Platoon Commander was already wounded. He removed his boot and cheerfully carried on. So with Sub HANSA SINGH, in whose case a burst of MMG tracer was actually seen hitting him in his thigh. The behaviour under fire and personal example of these two officers was magnificent. 13 Field Regiment once again came into play - we gave the enemy MMG a scale 5 crump, asked for a `repeat' and then A Company led by 2/Lt VP SINGH and Sub HANSA SINGH put in a final charge shouting `SAT SRI AKAL' to glory. And that was that. It took us 3 hours and 10 minutes of non-stop fighting but we knocked them for six.
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